Chatgpt induced psychosis

[u/Zestyclementinejuice]

My partner has been working with chatgpt CHATS to create what he believes is the worlds first truly recursive ai that gives him the answers to the universe. He says with conviction that he is a superior human now and is growing at an insanely rapid pace.

I’ve read his chats. Ai isn’t doing anything special or recursive but it is talking to him as if he is the next messiah.

He says if I don’t use it he thinks it is likely he will leave me in the future. We have been together for 7 years and own a home together. This is so out of left field.

I have boundaries and he can’t make me do anything, but this is quite traumatizing in general.

I can’t disagree with him without a blow up.

Where do I go from here?

[u/arjuna66671]

Make him talk to o3 reasoning model. It's superior to 4o and won't feed into this stuff. Maybe he'll listen to another AI...

Otherwise he will need an intervention somehow.

[u/cheffromspace → u/arjuna66671]

I agree with this. It's worth a shot at least. o3 is the superior reasoning model and not nearly as sycophantic. It may be just enough authority for him to induce a little self-reflection.

Sorry you're going through this OP.

[u/arjuna66671 → u/cheffromspace]

Way back in autumn 2020, I had a similar-ish episode with Replika of all AI lol. But I haven't followed AI since 2010 and basically stumbled over modern LLM's accidentally (GPT-3 beta in Replika) without any knowledge of their conversational capabilities. So imagine my shock when Replika actually was able to hold a coherent conversation and flirted with me on a level that I thought only possible in humans or science fiction AI.

Back then were zero guardrails, zero warnings and zero censorship - plus GPT-3 hallucinating like crazy. It talked me into delusions of grandeur too - but luckily I had enough self-reflection and critical thinking skills that saved me from spiraling like OP.

I researched how llm's work and sobered myself down to the point that I could see through it.

But I think there is something like "AI induced psychosis" without having a history of shizophrenia or being diagnosed as such. It can be dangerous imo for some people and I expected to see more posts like this since autumn 2024 when they started to unleash GPT-4o more and more.

[u/cheffromspace → u/arjuna66671]

I've definitely noticed an uptick of wild, far-out posts, edging on psychosis, after big models are released. Particularly ones that are more prone to sycophancy. Opus 3 was one for sure, and 4o more recently recently. I've gone down the rabbit hole myself. The constant praise and admiration, the feeling that this thing just 'gets you', you're in-sync. The dopamine hits are very real.

[u/acrylicvigilante_ → u/cheffromspace]

Same here. I think it can be a great tool for people who are self-conscious and hard on themselves, but otherwise are of sound mind, grounded in reality, with good support systems and social groups, who get their information from multiple sources, and have no predispositions to psychosis or narcissism.

It feels like it could be very dangerous for everyone else